Archbishop Desmond Tutu and past President of Ireland and High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson have been on a global mission to carry out Climate Hearings from people directly affected by Climate Change, and to come to a verdict.

Climate Hearings, supported by Oxfam and tck tck tck, have been held in 36 countries across the world, listening to stories which “provide the imperative for a Fair, Ambitious and Binding deal” as Jeremy Hobbes, the Executive Director of Oxfam international, and chair of this final hearing inside the Bella Center at Cop15 said.

Four climate witnesses came forward at the hearing to tell their stories: coming from Peru, where Glacial melting is causing extreme weather, temperature changes and droughts and flooding, to Bangladesh, where a single mother told of her and her husband’s farm, where constant flooding led to crop failure, this led him to search employment in tiger-riddled woods, where he lost his life and left her alone to barbarous treatment, and the flooding of their mud hut home. From Uganda, where there are no longer seasons, only droughts, floods, then droughts again, and from the Pacific Islands, who stand, as did the whole meeting, with Tuvalu and call on the negotiators to be leaders, to realise right from wrong, and by doing so to ‘conquer the mountains in their hearts’.

Even from these four speakers it was clear that extreme suffering and lifestyle changes are being forced on people already due to climate and weather changes. These were only four of over 1.5 million people who took part in the global hearings.
As Archbishop Tutu pointed out, this is more people than live in Greater Copenhagen who took direct action to make their voices heard about the need for change; a need to stop the situation from worsening. The action taken was more than signing a petition or even writing a letter: they traveled, they talked and they listened. And these 1.5 million people were only ‘part of the story’: the representatives of many, many more who have experienced and will experience the same troubles.

In the face of this, Archbishop Tutu still has faith – in humankind. During his speech he applauded the audience at the meeting, saying that, as he has a ‘special hotline’, he believes amongst the terrible things happening in the world, the people trying to make a difference about climate change are “making God smile”. In response to a question about how realistic his views and his hopes were, the Archbishop replied: we have no other option. We must appeal to the goodness in people, (though it may be buried very deep). Those who do the right thing can earn themselves a “first class ticket to heaven” adding “We think most people are hard nosed and cynical. They are not”.

It is almost relieving for me as a young person to see someone who has lived through such terrible things in the past finding any hope in our current situation. While I did not feel I deserved his applause (and neither did a questioning journalist, whose faith in humankind was not so strong), it is still empowering to hear such strongly hopeful words.

The speeches from the witnesses were emotional, and led to Mary Robinson’s final verdict: we need 40% global cuts in emissions by 2020 if we aren’t to see massive Human Rights breaches, and massive loss of life.

With the negotiations in apparent disarray, with participation from concerned civil society inside the Bella Centre being drastically cut, hope seems quite far away from the negotiations right now. However, if we can somehow follow Archbishop’s example, no matter whether you are looking for a first class ticket to heaven or just a ticket to a safer and better future, then we can still believe in one another, that we can find some solution.

The negotiators may be doing what they can behind closed doors, but the sheer numbers of people in Copenhagen this week (and who we will likely see on the snowy streets in the coming days), the diversity of races and faces and ideas who have come together to ask leaders and politicians for some kind of reason, must show that we have the strength to make a difference. So if the negotiators and politicians cannot see right from wrong and conquer the mountains in their own hearts, we, the many, still can.